A Peace Convention and the wisdom of Ali Nawaz

Posted on December 12, 2009 by beenasarwar

Article posted to my yahoogroup in June 2002  – the Rs 4000 minimum that Ali Nawaz from Balochistan talked about now would be more like Rs 10,000 (right, economists?). Although little has changed for him and people like him, the ‘Balochistan package’ and the historic NFC award agreed upon on Dec 11 at least offer some hope in terms of more equitable resource distribution and opportunities. This is the difference between dictatorship (no matter how mild) and democracy (no matter how messed up)

The News on Sunday, Jun 16, 2002

A Peace Convention and the wisdom of Ali Nawaz

by Beena Sarwar

Ali Nawaz works at a motorcycle factory at Hub Chowki in Balochistan, near Somiani, the sun-baked coastal area from where Pakistan recently test-fired the nuclear-capable Abdali missile as a warning to a war-ready India. From here, it takes over two hours to get to Karachi, driving east along the coast of the Arabian Sea. On Saturday June 8, along with some two dozen of his fellow workers, Nawaz made this journey using the factory van headed to the noise and rush of Saddar in the heart of Karachi.

The motorcycle workers are not interested in the bazaar; besides the fact that they can’t afford the goods on sale, there are more important things on their mind — like the Peace Convention organized at the Karachi Press Club by the Pakistan India People’s Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD) and the National Trade Union Federation of Pakistan.

As many as twenty five out of the forty one workers at Nawaz’s factory attended the Convention of their own accord. Why? Continue reading →

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Two invitations (Jamal Naqvi, Hamza Alavi events) and some uploads

Posted on December 11, 2009 by beenasarwar

Armed police confronting unarmed students (Students' Herald, Jan 19 1953)

New uploads & pix at Dr Sarwar blog
* Those killed on Jan 7 & 8, 1953 – martyrs’ to the students’ cause
* Article by Saghir Ahmed, High School Students Federation (Students Herald ’53)
* Article by Shahid Husain on the student movement, Editor’s Choice in PKonweb.com

INVITATIONS

An evening with PROF. JAMAL NAQVI
“Defend and Strengthen Democracy”

Fri, Dec 11, 2009, 4:00 p.m., Karachi Press Club
Contact: Nasir Arain, Ph: 0300 8200718

8th Annual HAMZA ALAVI Distinguished Memorial Lecture, “Pakistan and the Nature of the State: Revisionism, Jihad and Governance” by Khaled Ahmed, Consulting Editor, The Friday Times, Lahore.
Wed, Dec 16, 2009, at 5 pm, Jinnah Medical College, Shaheed Millat Road, Karachi.
Contact: Iqbal Alavi, Irtiqa Institute of Social Sciences
0300-927-6504 & 021-3583-1807

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The curse of living in ‘interesting times’

Posted on December 6, 2009 by beenasarwar

My recent column, published in Hardnews, India and The News on Sunday, Pakistan

PERSONAL POLITICAL

The curse of living in ‘interesting times’

Beena Sarwar

Visiting newspaper offices in Sweden some years ago, I was struck by the relative ease and routine manner in which journalists obtained information. Any envy was overtaken by the comforting thought that at least it’s never boring to be a journalist in Pakistan. Someone obviously threw the proverbial Chinese curse at us: “May you live in interesting times” and added, for good measure, “not just interesting, but downright dangerous”.

The roller coaster ride of Pakistan continues, with many passengers unsure whether the seat belts and the mechanisms are in working order. As I write this, speculations are rife about the ‘expected’ change of face in government. But then, if one were to believe the forecasts of newspaper and television pundits, this would have happened months after the first elected government in 12 years took over power in March 2008. Continue reading →

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TED and Compassion, India-Pakistan joint defence, Zardari and conspiracies

Posted on December 2, 2009 by beenasarwar

Several links and news items I’ve been wanting to share and finally managed to compile – as well as a belated bit of good news and congratulations to Dr Hassan Abbas, a journalist and then police officer in Lahore before becoming an academic and blogger at Watandost. He has been selected for the QAU Chair at Columbia U, well deserved. He has for years been stressing the need to deal with many of the problems in Pakistan as regular law and order issues, rather than blanketed under the ‘war on terror’, and has suggested reforms to the police sector including better training, pay and equipment – see his recent police reforms paper at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding (ISPU)

Meanwhile, conspiracy theorists are having a field day in Pakistan, with much unease at how some journalists are (mis) conducting themselves. I say let them fulminate and froth. We’ve had fighting words from Zardari in his latest speech, and he has come out swinging (to use Bilal Qureshi’s term) in his interview to Express TV, posted at Pkonweb

The bottom line is that Pakistan army does not want to be under civilian control – see report by Saeed Shah: ‘Pakistan’s military seen moving to undercut Zardari over his close U.S. ties‘

One of Zardari’s ‘faults’ in the ‘establishment’s’ eyes is his insistence that India is not the enemy. Continue reading →

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Commemorating the January 1953 movement and a story about Karachi students inaugurating a Multan hostel

Posted on November 21, 2009 by beenasarwar

Here is an interesting story from the 1953 student movement, about how they contacted colleagues and supporters in other parts of the country in an age when communication was far slower and more expensive than it is now. Continue reading →

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Honour and take forward the legacies: M.B. Naqvi, Prof. Nauman, Pervez Masih

Posted on November 17, 2009 by beenasarwar

Prof. M. Nauman

The cause of progressive politics in Pakistan suffered two major losses over the past week, with the passing away of veteran journalist M.B. Naqvi, 81, on November 7th, and Prof. M. Nauman, 58, on Nov 15th.

M.B.Naqvi

I know they would both have been present at the event planned for Jan 9-10 in Karachi to honour and take forward the legacy of the 1950’s student movement – and they remain with us in spirit and through their ideas, work and commitment. See the Dr Sarwar blog for more on both.

Three-year old Diya with mother Shaheen and father Pervez's photo (courtesy Fauzia Minallah)

Honour Pervez Masih: a janitor at the International Islamic University, killed when he stopped a suicide attacker (reportedly in women’s clothes) from entering the cafeteria for female students on Nov 16th. His heroic stand saved the lives of more than 300 students. Many to remember him as a hero — but his mother told a CNN reporter, `My hero is dead’. 
Continue reading →

Filed under: Pakistan | Tagged: , , , , | 4 Comments »

Defending President Zardari

Posted on November 13, 2009 by beenasarwar
zardari2

Let the democratic process continue…. A must-read: I.A. Rehman’s article in Dawn, Nov 12, 2009, ‘The Locus of power’

Extract: “All elected prime ministers, from Mr Bhutto to Mr Nawaz Sharif, tried with varying degrees of earnestness, to get rid of the halter around their necks and all of them came to grief. Now that it is possible to think of democratic advancement the reasons for their failure must be thoroughly examined and adequately addressed.”

Below, Defending President Zardari, an article in the Business Recorder, Nov 13, 2009 worth reading all the way through.

by SYED SHAHID HUSAIN Continue reading →

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Lagay Raho, Media Bhai (Keep At It, Brother Media!)

Posted on November 5, 2009 by beenasarwar

See article below, posted with this comment by Shaheryar Azhar, Moderator, The Forum: “What is amazing is that people like Kamran Khan, Shaheen Sehbai and then politicos like PMLN (and PPP to be sure as in 1999) and everyone in between have such low opinion and regard for democracy that for all kinds of invented reasons they are ready to sacrifice it at a drop of a hat. They are or unwittingly become instruments of the Army. No one has the mental toughness to ask the difficult questions or patience to let the political process sort out the incompetent and the corrupt overtime. Irony of irony is that, in turn, each of them have themselves been a victim of the same establishment whose line they now toe. What accounts for this short-sightedness? Are they too self-absorbed, too bereft of core beliefs, too egotistically driven, too lacking in wisdom to see the circus of repeating rings! This is a great article by Sadiq Saleem because he is raising the logical issues – one can already see an alternative narrative developing here, which can, one hopes, lead one day to the true practice of the Charter of Democracy.”

Lagay Raho, Media Bhai (Keep At It, Brother Media!)
The News, November 04, 2009
By Sadiq Saleem
On Monday, November 2, thirty-five innocent Pakistanis lost their lives to a terrorist attack. These were ordinary people, standing in line at a bank to receive their monthly salary. They must have gone there with plans of spending that money on their parents, wives, children, brothers and sisters. But for the Pakistani media, especially the TV anchors who have now become the arbiters of what is important and what is not, the death of these poor people was not important. With their usual cast of characters from —Jamaat-e-Islami to Imran Khan to the two Muslim Leagues— the electronic media that day was exclusively focused on the so-called NRO issue.

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The long war – Personal Political column in Hardnews

Posted on November 2, 2009 by beenasarwar

Oct 22, 2009: Slightly amended version of my column for Hardnews, November 2009 issue

PERSONAL POLITICAL

Beena Sarwar

My 13-year old daughter and her friends were thrilled when the government announced a nation-wide closure of schools for the rest of the week. Their joy dimmed when they learned why: suicide bombers at Islamabad’s co-ed Islamic University had killed several students. Amidst fears that more educational institutes would be targeted, armed forces-run schools were already closed.

Pakistan is at war. The entire country is the battleground. The series of bomb blasts gained momentum as expected, in the run-up to Oct 17 when the army launched its ground offensive in South Waziristan.  During the first two weeks of October, militant attacks killed over 150 people, including some 40 on a deadly Thursday in Lahore, Kohat and Peshawar.

Continue reading →

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The MF Husain controversy: Identity, intent and the rise of militant fascism

Posted on November 2, 2009 by beenasarwar

I wrote this essay for Nukta Art in September, for its November issue which has just been published

Beena Sarwar

Cover March 2009

Communalism Combat cover, March 2009: Fighting back

The campaign against the iconic Indian artist Maqbool Fida Husain, perhaps the most prominent living symbol of art under attack, is part of the political fight for India’s soul – secular democracy versus a ‘Hindu’ state.

Several interrelated issues arise from this situation, linked with intent, identity, politics, religion, the role of the state, and of course the nature of ‘art’ itself. The illogical controversy has unfortunately been allowed to overshadow the artist’s phenomenal, critically acclaimed work itself both in India and abroad.

Continue reading →

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